American Folk Art Museum’s 60th Anniversary Exhibit “Multitudes’

New York executive Claire Gruppo leads Terra Nova Capital Partners M&A practice and provides solutions for middle market clients, both buyers and sellers. With a strong interest in cultural traditions, Claire Gruppo is also,an avid collector of American folk art.

The American Folk Art Museum celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2022 with “Multitudes,” an exhibition of 400 representative objects from a collection that spans 8,000 pieces. The exhibit reflects a successful revival for an institution that had no permanent home for several years, as it had to sell off a new facility in 2011 that had pushed it into serious debt.

With the museum now back at its original location near Lincoln Center in Manhattan, the exhibit makes full use of available space. Among the highlights are hand-tinted photographs, thread “paintings,” and acclaimed works by outsider artists such as Henry Darger, whose paintings are also featured at the Museum of Modern Art.

Many of the displayed items are functional and reflect creativity applied to objects with everyday use around the home. Others take elements from practical everyday items and repurpose them. For example, 20th century artist Philip Pellegrino was a shoemaker who used leather scraps to create fantastical miniature sculptures with themes that range from pipes to human figures.

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How Marie Curie Started in Science

Claire Gruppo is a New York-based financial executive who leads Terra Nova Capital Partners M&A practice and delivers effective capital solutions for her sell-side and buy-side clients. Presently working on a memoir, Claire Gruppo has a passion for reading mainly non-fiction -- biography, history, and science.

One of the most remarkable figures in early 20th century science is Marie Curie, a Polish-born pioneer in chemistry and physics. From a humble background of schoolteacher parents, Curie was encouraged in early scientific pursuits by a father who taught the subject. Lacking tuition for college, she earned enough as a governess to travel to Paris at age 24 and begin studying at the Sorbonne.

Despite having such a limited budget that she rationed food, Curie was immersed in her studies to such an extent that she pursued a math degree after completing her physics qualifications. She also met her husband Pierre Curie, a physicist, and started working at the lab of his institution.

Raising two daughters while performing groundbreaking research, Marie Curie received criticism for spending too much time in the lab and too little caring for her kids. Undaunted, Marie Curie persisted and succeeded on her own terms. In addition to discovering polonium and radium, she contributed significantly to developing effective cancer treatments.

How Weather Vanes Became Staples of American Folk Art

Investment banking executive Claire Gruppo serves as the senior managing director at Terra Nova Capital Partners. Passionate about reading and the arts, Claire Gruppo owns a collection of American folk art.

One folk art piece with practical application is the weather vane, pioneered by Leonard W. Cushing, a 19th-century manufacturer of wooden models that farmers affixed to roofs to help them predict the weather. Looking for something beyond the utilitarian, Cushing, perhaps inspired by a Currier & Ives lithograph of a legendary race featuring the steed Ethan Allen, commissioned ornamental carver Harry Leach to “carve some horses.”

While there had been earlier makers of fanciful weather vanes, the result of this appropriation of a popular motif ensured the popularity of ornamental weather vanes and whirligigs. A.L. Jewell capitalized on this idea, transforming his successful metal casting business in Waltham, Massachusetts, almost entirely to weather vanes in the 1860s. Today, weather vanes from this era are in demand and likely to be showcased indoors instead of outside.

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The Grace Children’s Foundation’s CRE Program

Claire Gruppo serves as the senior managing director of Terra Nova Capital Partners, a mid-sized investment bank in New York City. Passionate about the well-being of underserved children, For over 10 years, Claire Gruppo was a trustee with The Grace Children’s Foundation (GCF), a nonprofit working to improve the lives of needy children through the Children’s Resource Exchange (CRE) program.

CRE provides pediatric health care, which includes medical, surgical, and rehabilitative care, research, and cures. To accomplish its goals, CRE must be able to connect any child, regardless of background or location, with resources to help them. To meet this challenge, GCF has fostered partnerships with healthcare and technology innovators at Microsoft to create a connective digital platform for the CRE.

Microsoft will develop the platform by using artificial intelligence and Microsoft technology. Initially, a web application prototype will help the CRE program transition from a manual network to a digitally connected platform. When the digital platform is implemented, the CRE will be able to quickly and efficiently connect pediatric healthcare resources to children anywhere in the world.

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